Surely Girls Can Vote, Too
by 1bluesapphire
Summary: AU! In which Lily Evans wants to give girls in Great Britain the right to vote. But can she?


It was November 10th, 1918. Lily Evans' eyes sparkled with delight as she read the morning Daily Prophet.

To some people, this newspaper may have looked strange, but to Lily, it was perfectly normal to see black-and-white photos moving in the paper.

Of course, Lily had been used to this since she was eleven, and she nearly twenty-three now. Lily was a witch, and she and her closest friends all resided in the Magical World. She now sat down at the kitchen table, and Morgana, her black and white owl, fluttered through the open window and deposited the Morning Daily Prophet on her lap.

In bold black letters, the headline screamed, WAR IS OVER, ALL SURVIVORS HEADING HOME.

Lily let out a whoop of joy, and ran outside to scream for joy.

"It's over, it's over!" She cried happily, which attracted the attention of her closest friend, Alice Rivers. Alice was engaged to a soldier named Frank Longbottom.

"Alice! The war is over!" Lily yelled at her happily, and Alice grinned.

"I know, and I can't wait till Frank and father come home." She said, equally as happy as Lily.

"And I can't till Severus comes home." Lily said, blushing slightly.

Alice sniggered. "Lily, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. You and Severus ought to be married in the next few years, and then start a family."

Lily could only smile in agreement.

After the war ended, life resumed in an orderly fashion, until one morning, Lily spotted another headline which made her groan in annoyance.

VOTING SYSTEM UP AND RUNNING AGAIN, AND OF COURSE GIRLS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE

She tossed the paper aside in pure annoyance, which Severus Snape caught neatly. He gave the headline a rueful smile, and said, "Do you know, it's the first year I can vote? We couldn't vote when we were away fighting."

Lily sighed, and said, "How nice for you. But it would be nicer if girls could vote once in awhile, too. If only there was something girls could do to get the right to vote."

Severus' obsidian eyes shone with an idea. "How about a petition, or something? If you get so many votes, the government may reconsider it."

Lily grinned back at him. "What a fantastic idea! I'll ring the government, and ask them."

Five minutes later, Lily came back, and she looked slightly nervous. "I got permission, but I only have a month to get 100,000 votes."

"Don't worry, Lily. You'll get enough votes, I promise. Some of my friends also wished that their wives had the right to vote, mostly because they kept complaining."

That afternoon, Lily and Severus headed to Diagon Alley by fire, and went to the bank first. Not only did they get their money to go out for dinner that evening, but by the time they returned home, Lily already had two hundred and sixty-four votes.

Over the next twenty-nine days, Lily had collected thousands and thousands of votes. She had sent the petition to Hogwarts, to her local bank (not Gringotts), to her old schools, and even sent messages to other wizards and witches that she knew.

So, by the end of the month, Lily was certain that she had the right number of votes to get ladies all over Britian the chance to vote. She did an Add-Up-Spell, and was dismayed to realise that she only had 99,998 votes.

"Sev, I'm low on votes. I need two more." She told him one wet Friday evening, the last day of the month.

Severus looked over the list of signatures, and smiled.

"Lily, if we both sign it together, we'll have the votes we need, and then we can send this to the government." He said, and scrawled his name with an eagle feather quill. Lily then signed her name as well, and the parchment glowed gold, before it vanished into thin air. It was going to the government office in London, and it had just arrived.

Mr. David Lloyd George was just finishing his cup of tea, when there was knock on the door.

"Come in, Mary." He said, and in Mary walked. Mary was a twenty-two year old, who had been working for him for seven years. She held out a silver envelope to him, and he opened it.

Inside the envelope was a piece of parchment, on which there was thousands of signatures. On the top were the words, SURELY GIRLS CAN VOTE, TOO.

David sighed, and called all of the members of Parliament together.

"How about we also vote if girls can vote or not? He asked them. "Those in favour, raise a red flag; those not in favour, raise a black flag."

All but two of the twenty members of Parliament raised a red flag.

"Well, eighteen votes cancels out two votes, so I reckon girls over the age of eighteen have the right to vote." David said, and rang the local newspapers to put the results of the petition on the front page of each of them.

The next morning, as Lily tumbled out of bed, she ran smack into her grinning husband.

"Well done, Lily, you succeeded." Severus told her, and handed her the paper.

All traces of sleepiness vanished as Lily read the front headlines of the Daily Prophet. GIRLS OVER 18 ARE FINALLY ALLOWED TO VOTE.

Lily smiled, and ran with her husband to go and vote for who they wanted to be Prime Minister, and David won again.

The End


End file.
